Endurance Run: Shenmue - Part 19

Mmmmm, yeah. Press that accelerator HARDER!

@mrcraggle: I remember trying to call her several times during a day, and all I got was that she wasn't home yet.

"Fuk U, san" was a good joke.

And now I understand why Jeff called this a "bullshit forklift simulator for assholes". Oh boy, what a beautiful mess of a game this is. It's amazing how Vinny, Alex and Dan can make it so entertaining to watch.

I know it doesn't age well, and I know that many modern narrative game tropes owe their existence to this game, but even at the time I didn't think it told a compelling story or played well. I sat shotgun for a friend's playthrough when the game released and I couldn't understand why he wasn't just playing PSO

Shenmue 2! Shenmue 2!

Oh no. Vinny thinks you fight Lan Di at the end. Oh jesus.

Good lord, this is fantastic. I remember liking this game, but I also liked a lot of shitty things. That said, there really wasn't anything like this at the time, and the Dreamcast was just churning out new gameplay styles and experiences. I was a huge DC fan, so I ate them all up. Funny to see which experiments ended up panning out. And I guess this did, to a certain extent. But damn, it doesn't hold up at all.

@lovcol: I believe you just have to call her in the evening. She works at the shop during the day so it's pretty obvious she's not there to answer. That said, sometimes she simply won't answer even with she should be home but you just have to persist with it. If the GB duders some how figured to call her, if they heard she wasn't there, I'm sure their lack of follow through and curiosity would've lead them to believe that's the only answer you get just because the game often makes you feel that way with repeated interactions that don't really go anywhere.

@cornfed40: Your logic path is absolutely confusing. They're playing Shenmue as part of the endurance run, they have all the time they want. You're saying they have families and relationships to maintain but how does that even factor into this? They're playing this game as part of their jobs, not skipping out on being at home with their loved ones.

@lovcol: Well, yeah, she's pretty much working 9-5 at the flower shop. Which is weird, given that she lectures RYO about not going to school.

@johnymyko: Heh, it's interesting when someone remarks on how entertaining the crew is managing to make this, because I'm (probably along with the others who like the game) constantly thinking, "Wow, it's amazing how much more boring they're making the game look than when I play it."

@gregalor: @mrcraggle: I figured she was working, so I tried to call her later - all the way up to the last minute of the day. Nothing. Of course, I could have tried every day in hope of something happening, but.. you know..

Welcome to humid upstate ny. Say hello to the Dobsonfly:

@lovcol: Hey, people praise Dark Souls to high heavens for that shit, to be fair.

So Vinny's been jamming the analog run trigger this whole time, but when it comes to forklifts he has a feather touch and keeps messing up the tutorial?

This is an entertaining series.

They would have had an easier time if they used the help button during this game.

@mrcraggle: Your point is absolutely my point. They are playing this at work, not at home, Which means they aren't going to play in 8 hour stretches, or multiple sessions a day to try to squeeze every bit of hidden boring out of the cracks of this game. Remember, this is all filmed and in the can already. They were already working on an abbreviated time table with Dan only being in town for roughly less than a month, and in that time they were also doing numerous quick looks and podcasts and whatever daily grind stuff their jobs entail. When I was a kid I had 1, maybe 2, games at a time so yes, I had time dick around and try every last thing I could over and over again. That's not the case in this situation.

You yourself even stated "That said, sometimes she simply won't answer even with she should be home but you just have to persist with it. If the GB duders some how figured to call her, if they heard she wasn't there, I'm sure their lack of follow through and curiosity would've lead them to believe that's the only answer you get just because the game often makes you feel that way with repeated interactions that don't really go anywhere." I just cant comprehend how this is anything but poor game design. Even though this does nothing, much like 90% of the other interactions in this game, just keep bashing your head against the wall with everything that doesn't do anything and 10% of the time, something (meaningless) might happen.

I get that some people love this and have intense nostalgia for it. But in a world where something like Morrowind came out just 2 years later.........this just loses a lot of its luster

@cornfed40: Not trying to argue, but I believe according to Dan on the bombast, they were indeed recording for some 7 hours at a time at some point.

@gregalor: What?

"Vinny, let's get the prediction right now--how does this game end?"

"I fight Lan Di."

Checks calendar. Nope, Shenmue III still hasn't been released.

I really hope someone mails GBEAST a copy of Shenmue II for Xbox and they do another endurance run after Dan rejoins them. It's hard to separate nostalgia from Shenmue for me personally, but I do enjoy the schadenfreude of watching Vinny crack.

@lovcol: Doing obscure nonsense that you practically have to stumble upon by accident. Both games are full of that.

Finally. This game's magnum opus: the forklift segment.

The back of the photo of Ryo's Father says "In Bailu Village" which comes into play in Shenmue 2.

@gregalor: A lot of people, myself included, don't come to Giant Bomb for amazing video game action. I'm here to listen to people who I respect, who've been around awhile, and that I find entertaining, talk about the industry, goof around, and showcase all the cool people who work in video games. It's like people complaining about the the games on UPF or something, I don't understand that at all. It's like another podcast for me and I love the relaxed vibe where they can just shoot the shit. The game is largely secondary, there to provide some sort of guideline on where the conversation can always come back to but that's about it.

That's not always the case obviously, as there is plenty of longer-form content on here where I am (and the crew are) invested in what's happening in the game but it's the exception not the rule. So the nothing-happens-ness of Shenmue lends perfectly to what I feel this site is geared towards. Shenmue being the way it is, and Vinny clearly thinking it was something else, makes it an incredibly entertaining game to watch and poke fun at.

You're a yearly subscriber and clearly a fan of the game so I understand the frustration. But that's cool! Different strokes and all that. I just worry that the way Giant Bomb tends to roll is counter to what you want out of a video series like this, especially for a game like Shenmue. But that's just how I feel, people come to this site for all sorts of reasons, and I get that.

@liquidsolidus: Oh I'm certain they would have had to given the short time table they had to work with. I wasn't trying to be overly specific, just commenting on the difference between playing a game as a kid and playing it as an adult. At least for me, as a kid during the summer or holidays or weekends I didn't have sports to play, I would sink the entire day into a game, turning it on before I got out of bed and not turning it off until about 4 hours after lights out, only stopping for food and bathroom. I mean, I must have sunk a combined 200 hours into Sonic Spinball and Genesis Jurassic Park, and those games are abominations.

@gregalor: It's a strange comparison to what I mentioned, and whatever's going on in other games doesn't really make things any different here. Insulting people over not "finding" this stuff just seems incredibly lame, but I guess that's more on the other guy in my original reply..

I have fondness/nostalgia for the game, but I couldn't agree more. It took replaying it a few times/having internet access for me to figure out the hidden Nozomi stuff. In the end, it doesn't even change the plot in any real way if you uncover it or not.

"I get angry when I see possums..."

Between this statement, his pet peeve about indecisive pigeons from last week's(?) Bombcast, and his hatred towards crabs (from Metal Gear Scanlon 3), I wonder if Dan likes any animals outside of dogs and deer.

I addressed what I said in another post. I played the first game a lot but only played through Shenmue 2 once on the Dreamcast and then half again on the Xbox so I don't really remember it so well so I can't even remember what was addressed from a gameplay standpoint. It's cool to discover that stuff but seeing how it's never super crucial to the overall plot, that stuff is just additional world building.

I'll be interested to see how Shenmue 3 fairs as I think the abstract and obtuse game design of the original just doesn't play so well in a the modern day. Do they even let you interact with every object? At the time it was novel and helped build and immerse you into that world but we certainly know it's not going to have anywhere near the same budget the original game had and we know it won't be able to match the likes many modern open world games like GTA V or The Witcher 3.

I remembered Mark the moment Vinny randomly spoke to him last episode while the quantum roadblock was still in place. Surprised you guys didn't use Mark-san's horrific face texture as the thumbnail. I remember being creeped out by that visage even as a kid. Nothing against the character since he's actually a pretty chill dude but it looks just as ass-ugly now as it did in '99. This Endurance Run is getting good again. Now you guys are cooking with forklift gas (propane?).

@lovcol: My intention isn't to insult anyone for not finding obscure hidden stuff, but to point out the inconsistency of going ga-ga over things like that in some games while holding it against other games.

Shemue 2 is just barely a better game. Don't let the use of "better" make you think it is good, or decent, it is still bad. You can jump forward in time. But you still have terrible fighting, pointless QTEs, and a weird "catch this lotus flower" thing that is the dumbest thing I've done in a game. I love when I played Shenmue in elementary school... but it was playing Shenmue 2 on Xbox a few years later when I realized Shenmue 1 was not good... not because it was such and improvement, but because the improvements did not make 2 a fun game to my barely evolved gaming sensibilities. It was then I realized all of the Shenmue games are hot garbage that don't care about creating an enjoyable experience for gamers. My God, both games don't even have endings with closure... they just end. Fuck!

So please, for the love of christ, no more Shenmue. No more. Please, no more. *softly begins weeping*

@gregalor: Now you're just making stuff up, man.. Other games don't matter, and was never mentioned.

Also, don't mistake the GB crew's "ignoring" of aspects - what we're really dealing with is "lack of any interest to engage, because the game doesn't any reason/motivation" to do side things.

We are Shenmueving along!

I've played this game three times since 2002, and only a year ago found out about the Nozomi phone stuff from the Game Informer playthrough (it might have just been in the comments; I can't recall if they actually made the calls). I'm comfortable calling it the most obscure and perplexing part of the game. I wouldn't mind it so much if the Ryo/Nozomi arc changed to accommodate how well you've been "maintaining" her, but the game presents cutscenes to you that do not make sense if you haven't made the phone calls. That has always been a major oversight, and that's coming from someone who forgives A LOT of other stuff. And if the guys think it's weird now, wait till they see where it goes later.

I don't know, I've always loved naps and sleeping.

Seems like when people hit 30+ they start talking of "getting old". That seems more appropriate for when you turn 50 or something.

The fact that Vinny hasn't leveled a single move and just seemed to be button mashing during the scant fights rather than figuring out what was quick or powerful makes me really worried for the pretty intense fight later.

Yu Suzuki might be one of the most absolutely incompetent storytellers in gaming, which is quite an achievement considering the stiff competition.

Points have been made that they don't know that you can level up moves and that mashing has worked so far. That's fair enough, I guess. I'm more amazed that we're 15-odd hours in and they've managed to avoid being taught a move by a character.

"I wish time would just stand still..." "NO!"

I think that is the issue, there is very little agency in any of the game ESPECIALLY the side quests and what is there is paper thin. Yet the game assumes you are going to take the time to explore and talk to these characters on the off chance you will get more than a line or two of repeated or irreverent dialogue.

Like most things in this game, its not for the lack of trying, the game just lets you work it all out for yourself...

Now that this scene has been shown, the context for this is known.

@poperamone: "Yet the game assumes you are going to take the time to explore and talk to these characters on the off chance you will get more than a line or two of repeated or irreverent dialogue."

Ridiculous as it may sound, this was a perfectly normal convention in 90s jrpgs and adventure games from the 16-32 bit eras. If you didn't grow up in that time I'm sure it seems dumb.

I have played many games from that time and I don't think I have come across one that does such a bad job at it.

I'm 35!

@cooljammer00: awwww, you beat me to the punch on that clip :P

How does Vinny find his way anywhere, ever? I love him but good lord. I've never seen anyone with as poor a sense of direction.